eBay Sellers Report Shipping Label Glitches on New Form

eBay sellers say the company has been in the process of rolling out a new page for printing shipping labels since October. Once their accounts have been moved to the new format, some begin experiencing problems printing their shipping labels.

A thread opened on the Packaging & Shipping discussion board on eBay in October is now four pages long. On Friday, one seller wrote, "I have not been able to print for 2 days. That was when I noticed the new format. My problem is that after I enter all of the info and push print, nothing happens. After a few minutes, it throws an error code 9998. I called Ebay. Nice enough, but no real help."

An EcommerceBytes reader said he noticed his screen looked different beginning November 29th. "I didn't see an announcement about eBay totally changing the eBay screen, looks totally different but its just the same thing but everything is in different places...seems like a USELESS change... My main concern is now when I print EVERY label I get a "java needs your permission to run, run this time or every time." Even if I choose every time this still pops up EVERY time I print a label."

The eBay seller continued, "Takes an extra few seconds now to load the java permission and to click it....kind of a pain when I am shipping 30-50 things a day now as the holiday season is here."

On another eBay thread, sellers who experienced the problem and had to void labels said it was taking between 2 - 3 weeks to receive compensation for the unused postage charged to them.

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.

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